‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Hits $1 Billion Worldwide as 2017 Closes

After 16 days in theaters, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” has crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office. It’s the third-fastest film in box office history to hit that mark, sitting behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at 12 days and “Jurassic World” at 13 days. With a domestic total of $517 million, it will also close 2017 as the highest-grossing release of the year, passing the $504 million made by “Beauty and the Beast” back in the spring.

“The Last Jedi” posted the biggest Friday-to-Friday drop of any “Star Wars” movie, falling 76 percent from its $104 million opening day total. But this weekend was the opposite, with Friday’s $19 million from 4,232 screens being only a 23 percent drop — the second lowest ever for a film with a $100 million-plus opening behind “Rogue One” — while the film made $52.4 million in its third weekend, just a 25 percent drop. The combination of a $220 million opening weekend and a second weekend in which the typically slow Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday exacerbated the first weekend drop, but “Star Wars” has made up that loss with strong holds on what has been a very robust New Year’s weekend.

But “Star Wars” isn’t the only film giving movie theaters a reason to smile. “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” is also proving to be a moneymaker, as it finished just a step behind “Last Jedi” with an estimated second weekend of $50.5 million. New Year’s Day estimates will push that total to $70 million, giving it an estimated running total of $186 million through the end of Monday. Strong word of mouth has helped the film pick up steam with family audiences coming out of Christmas Day, with four-day estimates showing a 26 percent boost over the $55.4 million made over Christmas weekend.

Another film that is increasing its numbers this weekend is Fox/Chernin Entertainment’s “The Greatest Showman,” which had a disappointing start last weekend but is now looking at a $15.4 million second weekend, a 75 percent jump. Include Monday’s estimates, the Hugh Jackman musical is looking at a four-day total of $20.5 million, a 43 percent increase, for a total of $54.1 million.

While Universal’s “Pitch Perfect 3” didn’t boost its numbers this weekend, it also posted solid numbers and will stay in third place, sitting between “Jumanji” and “Showman” with a $17.7 million 3-day/$22.7 million 4-day total, a drop off of just 14 percent that will give it a total by Monday’s end of just under $70 million. Fox/Blue Sky’s “Ferdinand” completes the top five with $11.5 million three-day/$15 million four-day to bring its three weekend total through Monday to $57 million.

In total, the holiday season has been a very fruitful one for theaters, as domestic totals since the release of “Last Jedi” on Dec. 15 have topped $1 billion, pushing the annual total over $11 billion for the third year in a row despite the worst summer box office season in 11 years. 2018 is expected to see a flip in that trend, as Disney is pushing their next “Star Wars” release, “Solo,” up to May. Without the boost of X-Wings and lightsabers behind it, 2018’s holiday season should see a major drop-off from this year, but that should be made up for with a stacked summer lineup that includes “Solo,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Deadpool 2.”

15 Best Stories Ever Told in the 'Star Wars' Universe (Photos)

With 40 years of movies, TV shows, comics, video games, novels and reference books, you'd be hard-pressed to ever run out of stories to read about the "Star Wars" universe, past and present. It's a big universe out there, and every story told in it is connected to all the others. Big stories are told as many different smaller ones, and small stories are told as chunks of a bigger picture.

These are the best chunks, big or small, in the history of the "Star Wars" universe.

15. The Rise of Admiral Daala in the "Jedi Academy Trilogy"

After "Return of the Jedi" in the version of the "Star Wars" continuity before Disney bought Lucasfilm, the Empire fractured into a bunch of splinter governments led by self-proclaimed rulers who would make up new titles for themselves like "high admiral" or "warlord" while still maintaining the pretense of Imperial legitimacy. Daala (a woman!) decided to try to bring it back together, and eventually was able to do so -- for a short time at least. Her brilliant machinations were a compelling as hell tale, and one of author Kevin J Anderson's only good contributions to "Star Wars" lore.

14. The Black Fleet Crisis

This is not referring to the "Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy" as a whole, since two of the three main narrative arcs in those books are unrelated to the event in "Star Wars" lore known as the Black Fleet Crisis.

The Crisis is great because it's the sort of cool scifi story that checks a lot of boxes simultaneously. In particular: unknowable alien force you've never heard of, weird galactic political intrigue with lots of backstabs from said alien force, and a grand mystery regarding how those aliens came to power in the first place. It's a really interesting scenario.

13. Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice

The "Star Wars" universe is full of stories about good apprentices going bad and wreaking havoc on the good guys, but we've very rarely gotten the inverse. That made "The Force Unleashed" a really novel experience. You play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice in the years between the original and prequel trilogies. You're a dark side force user and soldier for the Empire who goes rogue in a really epic way.

12. "X-Wing Alliance"

You're Ace, and you work for your family shipping company. You fly a freighter doing pretty boring things, until your dad's sympathies for the Rebel Alliance come back to bite the whole family in the ass.

You know how this goes: the Empire brings the hammer down, you join the Rebellion as a fighter pilot. But maybe the entire family isn't on board with facing down the Empire. This is the only "Star Wars" space combat simulator that gives you a personal story, and it turned out to be a great idea.

11. Admiral Thrawn

Not specifically thinking of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy here, but the story of Thrawn's life as a whole and his lasting legacy in the Expanded Universe. This guy was such a genius that even a decade after his death the plans he'd laid out were threatening to tear apart the fledgling New Republic. His fingerprints are everywhere.

10. The Battle of Borleaias

Late in the "New Jedi Order," famed Rebel hero Wedge Antilles is charged with holding the planet Borleias from the Yuuzhan Vong, and it's one hell of a thing. Massively outgunned, Wedge pulls a whole lot of seat-of-your-pants gambits out of his ass -- and this pair of books, authored by the late fan favorite Aaron Allston, is full of great and witty dialogue of the sort you just never got from other "Star Wars" authors.

9. Wedge and Friends Go to Adumar

As the war against the Empire winds down, Rebel hero Wedge Antilles and pals Tycho, Hobbie and Janso, are sent as diplomats to a newly discovered planet full of people who pretty don't give a shit about anyone who isn't a fighter pilot. If that sounds like a sitcom scenario, that's because it basically is. And it's great, incessantly funny and very awkward -- a great little side story that's as witty as they get in this universe.

8. Wraith Squadron

The story of the Wraiths, told over three books, is unique among "Star Wars" stories in a lot of ways. It follows famed Rebel pilot Wedge Antilles as he assembles a hybrid starfighter/footsoldier squadron of emotionally unstable washouts -- the idea being that such a group, when given some operational leeway, might approach apparently normal war scenarios in really unpredictable ways, and that's exactly what happens. It's the most human of all the "Star Wars" stories, full of truth.

7. The Tale of the Imperial Agent in "The Old Republic"

Many of the most interesting "Star Wars" stories are those that focus on characters who can't use the Force, and this is one of those. You play as a spy for the Sith Empire (thousands of years before the movies), doing awesome wartime spy stuff. And you get caught up in a galactic conspiracy to destroy both the Republic and Empire -- by a secret society tired of Force-using factions starting all these galaxy-spanning wars. It's a compelling-as-hell hook.

6. The Rise and Fall and Rise of Revan

Thousands of years before the movies, Revan was a Jedi who led the Republic military against invading Mandalorians -- only to turn to the dark side and wage his own war on the Republic, before turning away from the dark and defeating his own armies. That's the very short, very incomplete version. The story of Revan is thoroughly fascinating and ends up lasting hundreds of years across two video games ("Knights of the Old Republic) and a pile of books and comics.

5. The Jabba's Palace Heist in "Return of the Jedi"

It's become clear in the last few years that a lot of folks never really got what Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewie were doing during the first portion of "Return of the Jedi" -- and now we have all these thinkpieces about how it was reckless and haphazard. But no, that shit was an impeccable heist. They had a plan, and they pulled it off flawlessly and in style.

4. The Dark Wars

This story was told in the video game "Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords" -- a former Jedi who was exiled from the Order returns to known space only to find the Jedi gone from civilization and a pair of mysterious Sith lords wreaking havoc all over. It's a rare "Star Wars" noir story, and it's quite a doozy.

3. "Traitor"

In the '90s the "Star Wars" Expanded Universe got really moralistic and stuffy, and "Traitor" was a total refutation of that approach. It's the darkest "Star Wars" story ever written, but it serves a positive agenda in the end: one that asserts that maybe the Force isn't black and white and the Jedi don't need to stand around wondering about the moral implications of every little thing they do. It was a really great change for storytelling in the EU, and it's nice that it appears "The Last Jedi" might take a similar patch.

2. "Star Wars"

The one that started it all is a silly, not-particularly-well-thought-out movie, but it's tight as hell and covers all the ground it needs to. It establishes a completely new universe so casually, making it feel from the very beginning that this is a real, lived-in place. Everything you need to know about what's going on is right there.

1. "The Empire Strikes Back"

The lesson J.J. Abrams and friends should have learned from "The Empire Strikes Back" widely considered the best "Star Wars" movie, is that you don't make a"Star Wars" movie that stands the test of time by aping previous ones -- you have to go somewhere new. "Empire" functions as a total counter to the first movie, and that's why it's a perfect sequel.

1 of 16

There are more “Star Wars” stories than even you can imagine, even if you think you can imagine quite a bit. These are the best ones

With 40 years of movies, TV shows, comics, video games, novels and reference books, you'd be hard-pressed to ever run out of stories to read about the "Star Wars" universe, past and present. It's a big universe out there, and every story told in it is connected to all the others. Big stories are told as many different smaller ones, and small stories are told as chunks of a bigger picture.

These are the best chunks, big or small, in the history of the "Star Wars" universe.